LOS ANGELES — “Until hearing people walk a day in our shoes, they will never understand,” says a guidance counselor at a high school for deaf students on Switched at Birth.

Such insights are a staple of the ABC Family drama, a TV rarity that puts deaf characters, played by deaf or hearing- impaired actors, at the center of the action.

But the episode tonight takes it a bold step further: Save for a few spoken words at the beginning and the end, it is silent.

The actors’ hands do the talking with American Sign Language, even rapping together in one gleeful sequence.

Subtitles, which are typically sprinkled throughout Switched at Birth episodes, keep the viewer clued in. But when a deaf character is confused because she can’t hear something vital, the audience is, too. It’s powerfully disconcerting.

The cast, including Oscar winner Marlee Matlin as the school counselor, are excited about what they see as a grand experiment and are eager for viewer reaction.

“This is an opportunity for the hearing person to watch at home and try to experience it,” said Katie Leclerc, who stars as deaf teenager Daphne Vasquez. “It’s not exactly the same, but maybe you can try to imagine what your everyday life would be like.”

“It’s a risk,” added Leclerc, who has an inner-ear disorder, Meniere’s disease, that can cause hearing loss and vertigo.

“A big risk,” Matlin said through a sign language-interpreter. “But it’s going to be an eye-opener. I’m very proud to be part of this risk-taking, history-making episode.”

Matlin knows about making history. She was the first — and remains the only — deaf person to receive an Academy Award. She was honored as best actress for the 1986 drama Children of a Lesser God.

The Switched at Birth episode pivots on another key moment for the deaf community: a 1988 student protest at Gallaudet University in Washington that ended the unbroken succession of hearing presidents at the school for the deaf.

For fictional Carlton High School (inspired by a real-life Los Angeles school, Marlton), more is at stake: It faces closure because of funding cuts, meaning its students will be “mainstreamed” with hearing teens.

With Daphne as the driving force and invoking Gallaudet, students mobilize to take over the administration building and demand Carlton’s survival. The conflict’s ending will wait for the March 11 season finale.

The uprising panics parents and puts relationships at risk, including that of Daphne and Bay Kennish (Vanessa Marano), the switched-at-birth characters of the title who have come together as teenagers from two very different households.

“We started in the pilot with just one scene that was pure ASL,” involving Daphne and Emmett (Sean Berdy), said executive producer Lizzy Weiss. As the series developed, she and her writing team began pondering the “what-if” of an all-sign language episode for the second season.

To avoid overloading viewers with subtitles, the story was designed to be highly visual, including scenes of the student protest complete with picket signs and a defiant “Take Back Carlton” banner unfurled from the occupied school building.